by Kyra Lennon
My phone bleeped and I spun around to pick it up.
Yay! Can’t wait to see you! Xx
I sent back two kisses then put the phone back down to make my drink then took it through to the living room and sat on the beanbag that was on the floor underneath the window. I put my cup on the floor, took out my wallet, and pulled out Evie’s card.
I wasn’t sure why, but I’d found it hard to stop thinking about her when I’d gone to bed the night before. Not in that way. I felt bad for her because she’d been so stressed when she’d rushed out of the club. I knew the feeling of anxiety and it was horrible. But then, in the hotel bar, she’d been totally relaxed and easy to talk to. I couldn’t believe she was almost thirty. She could easily have passed for my age. Evie seemed insecure about her age, but earlier, I’d thought she was someone who had it all together. Thirty seemed a million years away, and I’d always figured most people have their lives sorted out by then. That obviously wasn’t true.
I set the card on the floor and leaned over to the table for my laptop, firing it up and going to Spotify to look up the bands I’d be seeing soon.
I only listened to two songs by two different bands before the front door opened. “Ash?” Natalie called.
“In here.”
I closed my laptop, resigned to the fact that everything I was doing would grind to a halt now, and as she walked in, I held back a sigh at the amount of bags she carried. No more trips for me until my bank account is full again…
She put the bags down and I tried to see where she’d shopped. It was too much to hope that she’d been on a shopping spree in Primark where clothes were reasonably priced. Nope. Lots of high end high street stores. Yay.
“Hi!” she said, rushing towards me as if she hadn’t seen me in a year. She kicked my laptop out of her way with her boot then straddled me, placing a kiss on my lips. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” I told her, resting my hands on her hips.
When she smiled, it was easy to remember why I liked her so much. She had jet black hair with red streaks running through it. She had huge blue eyes and she knew how to use them to get me to do what she wanted, and she always dressed in skinny jeans and cute, girly tops. She was beautiful.
“Did you have a good time?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. Youth Authority were great.”
Well, they probably would have been if I’d actually seen them.
“Now you’re back, we should go out tonight!”
“I have to work tonight.”
She knew this. She knew where I was every hour of every day, and where I was going, and what time I’d get there. This was just her way of telling me she was going out.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Well, Carrie and Skye want to go to Butterfly. I said I’d go.”
Their favourite nightclub in the city.
“Okay,” I said.
She smiled again. “I’m going to go and put all my stuff away.” As she stood up, she glanced down at the floor.
Shit. How could you be so stupid?
“What’s this?” Natalie swiped up Evie’s card. “Evangeline West? Who’s she?”
Her gaze was steady on me, and even though there was no reason for it, my muscles seized and I shuffled back slightly. “I met her last night. She’s… I…” My mouth turned dry and my palms began to sweat as her eyes narrowed into a glare. “She’s from Stockport. We started talking and we like the same music. I thought… I mean… she thought we might go to a gig sometime.”
She barked out a laugh. “Unless she looks like the back end of a bus, that’s not going to happen. So, does she? Is she an ugly bitch or did you fuck her?”
I knew the correct answer. Yeah, she was ugly. Nothing compared to you. But I wasn’t good at lying. I wouldn’t say she was ugly when she wasn’t, so I threw out the only defence I had. “She’s almost thirty, Natalie. I’m not interested in her. We just like the same music.”
Slowly, I could see her inner psycho calm. “Thirty?” she sneered. “She must be fucking desperate to be sniffing around you.”
I knew better than to say anymore. It was easier all around if she walked away. After another minute of her watching me, studying me and checking for signs of a lie, she stood up, still with the card in her hand. “You won’t be needing this.” She tore it into pieces then scattered them all over the floor. “Clean that up.”
As she walked away, I lowered my head, looking at the tiny bits of Evie’s card. I no longer had her number or email address, but I’d already added her on Twitter, and thankfully, Natalie didn’t see the handwritten Twitter handle on the back of the card. If she had… well, best not to think about that.
But now Natalie knew about Evie, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to meet up with her again. If I lied about it, she was sure to find out somehow, and I could hardly tell some woman I’d just met that my girlfriend was too possessive to let me meet up with her. I’d sound like a loser. Maybe I’d have to let it go.
My stomach twisted but I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she was so nice. Maybe that was why I’d thought about her so much. Because I could imagine her being someone I could trust. Because she was older, and obviously wiser. But also a little bit vulnerable. She had a story, just like me, and maybe she needed someone to talk to too.
She must be fucking desperate to be sniffing around you. Natalie’s words echoed in my head. Except Evie wasn’t sniffing around me. In fact, it was me who approached her both times. Once to check if she was okay, and once because… I had no explanation for the second time.
I sighed, pushing all thoughts of getting a new friend out of my head. Besides, she was probably only being polite. I bet she hadn’t given me a thought since she got home. And why would she? She was an adult with a life, and I was nothing.
Nobody.
Not important.
“Auntie Evie!” Oscar waved to me from the top of a large, brightly coloured squishy cube.
Keely had invited me along to the kids’ favourite soft play area on Sunday afternoon, to make up for the fact that I hadn’t seen them in a while. I truly loved Keely and Nick’s kids. I’d been there for every moment of their lives and I spent as much time with them as I could. Although not their real auntie, I treated them as if I was.
I waved back to Oscar and smiled then turned my attention back to nine-month-old Daisy who sat on my lap, playing with a fluffy toy chick. She was the exact image of her mother, with soft blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. Oscar was more like Nick; chunky and dark-haired, with a cheeky smile. Much like my ex and I, they had been together since they were young. Even younger than we were. They got together aged fourteen, and had been inseparable ever since.
They were everything Jay and I could have been. Everything we almost were.
“So, what’s up?” Keely asked, taking her eyes off Oscar for a second to look at me. “You’ve sounded weird since you got home from Exeter.”
I’d felt weird. Something about being alone while I was there, and realising I still had so many things to figure out, had led me into a strange, slightly despondent place.
“You heard that from my phone call?” I asked.
She fixed me with a ‘duh’ look. “Evie Bear, we’ve been friends since we were five years old. Of course I heard it. So…?”
“I don’t know.” I sighed, hating that the trip that was supposed to help me had made me feel worse. “This anxiety thing… it’s not too bad day to day, but when I was there, in that club, it was the worst it’s ever been. I shouldn’t have gone.”
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself. You’re not looking at the good parts. You drove all that way on your own. You stayed in a hotel alone. You ate dinner alone.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Seriously, how many more ways could she highlight the fact that I was about three felines away from becoming a crazy cat lady?
She laughed. “Come on. You know what I mean. You never do stuff on your own,
but you did all of that. You have to feel a bit proud.”
“I probably should.” But my brain was somehow programmed to always focus on the things I hadn’t achieved, rather than the things I had. “I’m just disappointed I didn’t do everything I wanted to do. And also… it only served to make me see what’s wrong with my life.”
“Nothing’s wrong with your life, honey. Not really.”
“I know. That’s why feeling this way is so horrible. I am so lucky. I have amazing friends, and a great job, and a home, and I’m healthy. But right now, much more of me still feels like a failure. For not holding onto my husband. For…” I trailed off, shaking my head. I had to stop this. Had to stop focusing on everything I’d lost. It was annoying to me, so it must have been annoying the hell out of Keely. Although, I wasn’t sure I’d ever fully expressed any of this to her. Not since Jay and I first broke up, anyway.
Daisy began to wriggle on my lap and I lifted her up to my shoulder and held her against me, gently rubbing her back until she settle. She wound her little arms around my neck and I smiled. I was lucky. Especially to have this family in my life.
“What can I do to help?” Keely asked, her eyes heavy with worry. She knew me. She knew I wasn’t depressed; not in the typical sense, at least. I was down, not my usual self, but not in a dangerous way. However, she had seen me at my absolute lowest. Any sign of me falling that far backwards, and she was right there to prop me up.
“I think I need to figure out how to help myself,” I said honestly. “I know I’m not some feeble woman who has to rely on other people to do everything, but there are a lot of things I need to work out. I need to keep taking small steps until I’m ready to take another leap.”
She knew what I meant by a leap. Leap equalled man. I had a lot of baggage to unpack first though.
“Well…” Keely reached over for my hand. “You know you have my support.”
I nodded and smiled softly. “I know. The other thing is, Jay is still trying to get hold of me.”
I’d been keeping her up to date on every time he’d called or messaged me, and he’d tried to call that morning too. He never left messages though. If it was important enough for him to keep trying, why not tell me via voicemail, or at least drop a hint?
She rolled her eyes. “Still trying, huh? Well, that’s not going to make moving on any easier.”
“Nope. Maybe I should block his number, but then… what if he comes to the house? I don’t want to see him.”
“If you keep ignoring him, he might do that anyway,” she pointed out, making panic bolt through me.
Keely had always liked Jay, until things went to hell between us, but since then, since he met someone else and started a whole new life, she’d seen him as heartless. Once he’d left, that was it. And that was probably how it was meant to be when people split, but we’d suffered together, and Keely always felt that he could have at least checked in now and again.
“I would hate it if he just showed up,” I said with a sigh.
I felt my bag vibrate against my foot, and, assuming it was my mum telling me what time she expected me over for lunch tomorrow, or perhaps even Jay again, I said, “One sec. My phone is buzzing.”
I handed Daisy back to Keely and reached down for my phone. On the screen, instead of a text from my mother, was a notification of a new Twitter message.
Ash McKay: Hi. Was wondering if you were still thinking of getting a ticket to see Chaos In The Courtyard. They just posted that they only have a few tickets left. Didn’t want you to miss out.
Well, look at that. I smiled to myself. I wasn’t expecting to hear from him again once we’d gone home, but it was nice that he hadn’t forgotten about us maybe meeting up again.
But now I had a quick decision to make. Did I want to spend more time with this somewhat awkward guy who was pretty quiet most of the time? And how badly did I want to go to the show?
“Keels, is it weird for me to spend time with a guy who is younger than me?” The question flew from my lips like a bird escaping from a cage. Plus, I was eager to steer the subject away from Jay.
She shot me a questioning look. “What are you talking about?”
I briefly explained what had happened in Exeter when I’d met Ash, and how we’d had a drink and swapped contact information. Actually, we hadn’t swapped, I’d kinda forced it on him, but he’d accepted and messaged me first. That probably made it okay.
Right?
“Twenty-three, you say? Is that just twenty-three, or almost twenty-four?” Keely asked.
“I don’t know! I only met him once; I didn’t immediately fit him with a tracking chip and start stalking him on Facebook!”
“Makes a change.”
I mouthed the words, ‘Piss off’ at her, but couldn’t help laughing. That was an enormous exaggeration. I never did any of that kind of stuff, but because I worried over everything so much, my friends always said I was only one step away from it.
“Does it make a difference?” I asked, thinking back to her question.
She shook her head. “I suppose not. It’s not like he’s under age, Evie. If you said you were going to a gig with a sixteen-year-old, then I might have some questions. But he’s in his twenties and he sounds okay. He likes music, you like music. It’s not weird at all.”
“I felt pretty out of place in that club in Exeter. I was wearing clothes that weren’t really my thing, and I felt my age. Actually, I felt about eighty.”
Laughing, Keely said, “You’re overthinking again. You know, rock clubs are pretty much the only place in the world where people don’t judge you? It’s all about the music. At least, that’s what Alice used to tell me.”
Alice was Keely’s older sister; a hardcore rock chick. She was into the heavy metal stuff. Almost every inch of her skin was inked, and she had piercings all over the place. The amount of times I’d been with her and Keely and people had stared and/or crossed the road to avoid her was hilarious because she was one of the sweetest people I’d ever known. She’d moved down to London a few years ago, and although she too was married with a kid, that didn’t stop her enjoying herself and going out to see live bands as often as she could.
“She’s probably right,” I said. “But… anxiety. It makes you think everyone is looking at you, even when they’re not. That was how I felt. Like everyone knew I was uncomfortable and thought I should actually have been at home wearing a onesie and drinking hot chocolate. And truthfully, that was kind of where I wanted to be, even though I also really wanted to stay.”
“So, go to the gig with this guy. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t want to be seen with you.” She crossed her eyes and poked her tongue out at me, making me laugh and lighten up.
I could do this. She’d made a good point about his age. He was an adult. Plenty of people make friends with people of a different age. I was being stupid.
I typed back: Yes, would love tickets but I’m out at the moment with crappy Wi-Fi. Hopefully they’ll hold out until I get home!
Ash McKay: Want me to get it for you?
Me: No, it’s okay! I couldn’t ask you to do that.
Ash McKay: Well, I’ll make you pay me back :p
I laughed and replied: Okay, go for it. I’ll PayPal you when I get home.
Ash McKay: No rush. You can pay me when we see each other if you want.
Me: Will do! I gotta go as I’m out with a friend, but let me know how much I owe you!
Ash McKay: Okay.
I popped my phone back in my bag and looked to Keely. “All done. I guess I’m going to another gig.”
“Yay! Do we need to go shopping to buy you something you’ll feel more comfortable in for the next one?”
“Hmm. Yeah, maybe. Reckon we could have a girly day out next Saturday?”
Keely grinned. “Absolutely.”
Three Weeks Later
It had been a long week. I’d worked every night from six until one. It was usually just after two a.m. when I go
t home, and often, by the time I’d relaxed, it was around three before I fell asleep. It didn’t help that Natalie woke me at seven most mornings because she ‘wanted to spend time with me’. What she really meant was that, on the four days she didn’t work, she wanted me to do crap for her. Sometimes it was stuff around the flat, and sometimes she wanted to drag me around the shops and spend money.
By the night of the Chaos In The Courtyard gig, I was knackered. I didn’t really want to go anymore, but I didn’t want to let Evie down. We’d messaged a few times over the last few weeks, and I was looking forward to getting out of the flat to speak to someone other than Natalie and the same people I saw every night at the bar.
As I came out of the bathroom and walked into my room, I stopped dead when I saw Natalie sitting at the dresser, wrapped in a towel and carefully applying her make-up. It was Saturday night and she went out most weekends, but she’d said she was staying in that night.
“What’s going on?” I asked, trying to sound casual. Because when Natalie went out, it hurt the hell out of my bank balance.
She looked over at me, smiling. “I thought I’d come out with you tonight.”
My body seized up at her words. No, no, no, no, no. Not tonight. I narrowed my eyes in confusion. “You hate rock music.”
“But I love you, and we haven’t spent enough time together lately. So, I’ll join you.”